1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the detecting impairment in monitored subjects, and more particularly, to a random cognitive impairment screening system and method using a subject's smartphone to verify the subject's identification, location, and a visual indication of potential impairment.
2. Description of Related Art
Restrictions on personal conduct and travel are often placed on individuals, sometimes voluntarily and other times involuntarily. For example, professional athletes often sign large contracts containing stipulations and conditions governing the athletes conduct. These so called personal conduct provisions may include a wide variety of conduct limitations, including prohibiting the athlete from consuming alcohol or illegal drugs, prohibiting the athlete from visiting certain locations, imposition of curfew restrictions, as well as travel restrictions, limitations, and/or requirements.
Verifying compliance with personal conduct restrictions, mandates, and prohibitions, presents difficulties. For example, one common restriction placed on, or voluntarily accepted by, individuals is a prohibition from consuming alcohol or drugs. Verifying whether an individual has violated such a prohibition typically requires the person to submit to alcohol and/or drug testing in order to confirm compliance. This typically entails arranging for the individual to appear at random and/or pre-arranged times in order to provide a blood and/or urine sample for analysis. This method of verification is costly and time-consuming, both for the monitored individual as well as monitoring personnel. Other conduct restrictions, such as travel and curfew restrictions pose similar compliance verification difficulties.
The background art reveals a number of attempts directed to enhancing and improving the monitoring of individuals subject to personal conduct restrictions. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,345, issued to Waldorf et al., discloses a table-top apparatus configured to surround the eyes for monitoring physiological responses for detecting the presence of drug impairment. U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,506, issued to Carter, discloses portable scanning pupillometers for detecting worker impairment. U.S. Pat. No. 8,317,328, issued to Harris et al., discloses a device for administering a gaze nystagmus field sobriety test. The device may comprise a portable computing device, such as a smartphone. U.S. Pat. No. 8,899,748, issued to Migdal, discloses a system for detection of eye nystagmus in a test subject using a camera to capture a series of sequential digital images of the test subject's face, and analyzing the images to determine blood alcohol concentration.
Streetime Technologies, LLC, maker of an eye-based self-administered prescreening system has a published patent application (Pub. No. U.S. 2010/0204600) for an Apparatus and Method for Passive Testing of Alcohol and Drug Abuse. That system includes a drug testing home device or a drug testing kiosk device for use by the participant. Participants are enrolled with biometric identification (fingerprints, voice prints, images) which are validated prior to a test. The system conducts and analyzes the test to determine whether the participant has been using alcohol or other drugs and should be subjected to a confirming urinalysis exam. The test primarily comprises a breathalyzer, but may further check for drugs using a volatile organic compound gas sensor and a pH sensor.
A smartphone-based, GPS monitoring system is available from Telmate LLC under the trademark TELMATE GUARDIAN®. The Telmate system prompts released offenders to periodically check-in and speak a random series of numbers while multiple photos are taken. The voice recording and photos are used to determine a positive match, and the offender's smartphone automatically reports its location. Browser-based mapping software tracks, logs, and compares the GPS location data against the individual's custom parameters.
The above-referenced advancements in the art of impairment detection are burdened by a number of limitations and disadvantages that prevented widespread use and acceptance. One significant disadvantage with the impairment screening systems of the background art involves the reliance on expensive and complex specialized hardware.